


kindling

by smithens



Series: kindling [1]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: 5 + 1, 5 Times, Angst with a Happy Ending, Christmas, Domestic, M/M, Phone Calls & Telephones, Through the Years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:54:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28329321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smithens/pseuds/smithens
Summary: Five times Thomas and Richard spoke on the telephone on Christmas day, and one time they didn't.
Relationships: Thomas Barrow/Richard Ellis
Series: kindling [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2075673
Comments: 21
Kudos: 61





	kindling

**Author's Note:**

> started this today, finished it today
> 
> the working title was "chrismoose..."

**1927**

"Well, I am sorry we can't see each other." He can't stop himself from tugging at the telephone cable, twisting it round his fingers. The door's propped open, for _propriety_ —not wide open, unlike some people he's got enough presence mind to give himself a bit of privacy, but open enough he can hear strains of laughter from the servants' hall, carols on the wireless. "But yes, it is very nice to hear your voice… 'course you'll've heard that already plenty of times today."

"Happen I have," laughs Richard—but Thomas isn't sure how sincere it is, nor if he's smiling on the other end. He's been able to tell, before, but he can't now. "From everybody in the family at least once over—but if you think that means I mind you saying it you're mistaken, Mr Barrow."

It's incredible, being in love. Having a man say things like that and mean them.

"Do you ever make it down at Christmas?" asks Thomas.

"Last was in '25," he answers, "spent all of Boxing Day in York, Mum was thrilled."

"Blimey, aren't they generous."

"Could be worse," Richard says lightly. "Went four years once without stepping on English soil twice, it's better than that." And what a high standard to beat that is. "...better this way, though, isn't it, now I can give you more attention than them and none'll be the wiser."

He's flirting.

It's sweet.

It's sweet, and he should be glad to hear it same as he just was a moment ago, but he's not.

 _Today's meant to be happy,_ he reminds himself, _and when was the last time you talked to him out loud, anyway? Months ago, be grateful..._

But _better_?

"Like I said," Thomas says, his voice catching. "Would've been nice to see you in person."

**1928**

"I haven't got a great deal to occupy myself with at the moment, matter of fact," Richard's saying. "Nothing much to do while His Majesty's abed—'course we're arranging his effects, and whatnot, but you can't do that from six til eleven without going batty... been moonlighting for the equerries some, keeping myself busy."

Keeping his mind off of him.

"But they wouldn't let you go home?" Thomas asks.

"His Majesty may take a turn at any moment."

"For the better or the worse?"

"Well, they'll need me for either one." He hesitates, first for a moment and then for longer. Long enough to get a word in edgewise, but Thomas doesn't know how to fill it himself or if he even should. "It all comes back to that, really," continues Richard eventually. "'S the reason we're still in London, too, after all."

"I knew that."

"Shame the one year I'm not at Sandringham you can't be–"

"Would you quit rubbing salt in the wound?"

He's too tired for this, if all it's going to be is woe-is-us, apart-yet-again. It's after midnight now.

Worth it, for the privacy. The door's shut and the windows are shuttered and anybody downstairs hasn't got a reason to be, not a good one, and given he's in charge he can take care of that before anybody could cry uncle.

And it's nice that the first voice he's hearing on Christmas Day is his lover's.

"Just I wish you could come up," murmurs Richard. "We've got a bit of time left, haven't we, Christmastide's not over yet—though I don't suppose we could manage it before the holiday generosity runs dry."

Suggestion after suggestion but the answer's always the same. He closes his eyes. "I don't think so."

"Right," Richard says after yet another lengthy pause, and Thomas squeezes his hand into a fist and pretends like he's not about to start blubbing for no bloody reason. This isn't the first time they've not seen each other over sometime special—last Christmas for example. Their first Christmas, rather, not to mention whatever else, time they should have off but don't for some reason. It's service; it's what they signed up for, all those years ago. You get in to a house and if you get in to a big one especially you stay there til you die, bowing and scraping with food you don't have to worry about and a roof over your head and a pension waiting for you if you make it half a century or more. If you find something you like better outside the house you can't have it unless you leave. "Sorry to be indelicate, but if it's the fare that's a problem–"

"No," he interrupts. "No, they just can't spare me."

If there were a chance of him leaving the fare _would_ be a problem, Downton-York-London and back again in just a day, but there isn't, so there's no use thinking or talking about it and that's that.

"Right."

"It's ten hours both ways," Thomas adds. "Not my idea of a happy holiday, if I only get to see you for a few hours in between that."

"I'd be happy for a few minutes with you."

_Yes, you're a much better person than I am, go ahead and rub that in, too..._

"You know," Thomas says, lamely and transparently changing the subject. "I don't mind it if you're indelicate."

"Don't you," says Richard.

He's smiling; Thomas knows it. Good.

"Leave my pocketbook out of it and I may even like it."

"On this, Mr Barrow, the first day of Christmas?"

A year ago that would have shut him down quick, but a lot can change in a year.

"The very same."

"Good tidings," Richard says, cheerful, but then he lowers his voice til it's a thrum in his ear, and even over the telephone it sends a thrill through him, sets him on his way to wanting: "I can be _very_ indelicate, when I care to be."

**1929**

"'Happy Christmas, here's your character and a month's wages for your years of loyal service'—I'm not saying it's happened already 'cause it hasn't, but I wouldn't put it past them."

"Have they given you any indication?"

"No, but..."

"But they're tightening their belts."

"The noose, more like."

Richard sighs. "You know I don't like you talking like that."

"If I only talked the way you liked I'd sound like somebody dreamt up by Georgette Heyer."

And then he laughs, which is much better, really. He was right; he shouldn't have said it. No need to upset him, not on Christmas.

Not more than he has to.

"The thing is," he starts. And then he shuts his mouth and swallows back the lump in his throat because he really doesn't want to do this, but if he's got to do it he'll not do it through tears. He's a grown man. Just because of how long it's been is no excuse to get weepy, and it's not the end of the world, this. Eventually things'll work out. Soon, no. Probably not soon, not the way things are looking. But eventually. "The thing is, I don't think I should take time off before I know if I'm to keep a job or not."

He doesn't say anything.

"Can't afford to lose the wages, if things go badly," Thomas continues, his voice shaky. "And I don't want them to think me disloyal, not when Carson never took a day off if he could help it."

"You mean Valentine's."

"Yes, I mean Valentine's."

"And we'd talked about April."

God this is difficult. "Yes, then, too."

"You're not serious."

Wouldn't that be nice if it were true.

Thomas takes a deep breath but can't make sounds come out of his mouth.

"Thomas," Richard says, so plainly disbelieving it hurts, "I haven't seen you since July."

And didn't that used to be so much easier, before? They went a whole year without seeing each other after the first time. "What, and it's been different on my end?"

"You know I'm happy to–"

"That doesn't solve the other bit though now does it?"

"Is there nothing I can do?"

 _Don't,_ he tells himself, _don't, don't, don't..._

"Well, if you want to see me that badly you might try coming here for a change."

"You're aware same as I am I can't just..."

Just as he fucking thought.

"Waste a day on a train? No," Thomas replies, like butter wouldn't melt in his bloody mouth. "No, I had no idea of that, it had never occurred to me that that might be bloody difficult to do every time you want to spend a night with somebody."

Nothing.

"You're a very bright person, Mr Ellis, figuring that out," he goes on, "here I've been wondering why more people don't go through life with their lovers two hundred miles away, but I see now it's 'cause the average bloke can't just fuck off to see his sweetheart whenever he likes, not when it means missing a whole day of work, wish somebody'd told me before–hang on."

He puts the receiver down (on its side, speaker pointing toward him) but only to fish through his pockets for a cigarette. He's only got one left in the pack after this one and the next time he'll be in the village is who-knows, so bully for him.

At least tobacco's not as costly as it used to be.

"Here again," he says, after he's lit up. It's already helping, which means he already feels guilty, of course. If only people would stop badgering him about the habit maybe he'd be nicer. "Sorry for that."

It's not like he's breaking it off. They just have to go a few more months apart than they otherwise would, that's all… Only they add up fast. Somebody's bound to get bored eventually. Bored, dissatisfied… he's been that before for years, he can manage it, but Richard shouldn't have to.

And _Richard_ lives in the biggest city in the world. He could find a man on every street corner if he looked hard enough, and all he'd have to do is crook a finger and they'd come running.

"I'm sorry," he repeats.

"No, I am."

"Yeah, well, it's our lot."

"It's not fair to you."

"Life's not fair to me."

"But _I_ want to be, Thomas," Richard says, softer, now, but still audible. Still himself. Thomas misses what his voice sounds like when it hasn't got to go through miles of telephone cable first. "I want to be."

**1936**

"And you were all ready to hand in your notice…"

"It's all anyone's talking about—loads of us had thought we'd be hitting the pavement by the new year, so the last fortnight's been havoc."

"But you've got a place still?"

"For now, yeah," Richard says. It relieves a weight Thomas didn't know he'd had upon his shoulders. "His Majesty's already got a primary man of his own, of course, but I've been around long enough by now I don't think they'll be getting rid of me, so it's–"

"Back to second valet?"

"Been second valet since January, love."

"Just doesn't seem fair to me," Thomas says, trying to put it lightly, not to let on that he's still offended about this on his behalf, but of course Richard sees right through it.

"Wouldn't be fair to the other bloke, neither." (True, but Thomas has no obligation to care a whit about _the other bloke_.) "But yeah, they've put it down again in the Establishment book, so I'd say the post's secure."

"Good."

"I'll go on my own terms, when I do. Won't be tough to find another place with my reputation."

"Maybe down there."

In one respect he's right, though—if anybody's around still needing a valet, they probably wouldn't even bother with an interview. You serve four kings in some capacity and you earn the right to be taken serious in your post.

"Times are changing, but it's a few years out yet, I'm afraid, not willing to take the leap just now."

Neither of them are, not truly. That's been made clear enough over the last year.

You go your whole life wanting nothing more than to leave service, but then when service starts to leave you you cling to it with all you've got.

Thomas has to wonder if it was ever like that for the men who came before them. The proper Edwardians, the Victorians, everyone from the _real_ old days… back when the people up top were thriving and you couldn't throw a stone without hitting a housemaid. Probably not, because there wasn't anything else to look toward. _Service_ wasn't actually leaving.

Now it is.

Even at Buckingham Palace it is, but that's not saying much when the staff's at three hundred.

But surely others have felt it, that sense that something's waiting for them somewhere, somehow, if they could only find it, if only they just looked… not in service, perhaps, but in other places. They can't be the first to.

Looking's scary, though. That's the problem.

"Lady Mary's told me I'm not to go anywhere til Master George is gallivanting about Oxford."

"When's that?"

"God, I dunno. Next decade, maybe."

1941\. What a terrifying thought. Can't it come any slower?

"Well, what say you on the matter?"

"Mr Barrow! Mr Barrow!"

Shit.

"Hang on," he says, just in time for Miss Caroline to come crashing through the door in her pyjamas, followed by Miss Sybil in a dressing gown. He's about to wonder why the hell he was allowed to let the family fend for themselves the whole morning when he looks at the clock and finds that it isn't even half six. "Miss Caroline!" he exclaims, standing. "What are you doing out of bed so early?"

"Mr Barrow, Father Christmas has come!"

Miss Sybil puts her finger to her lips. She's sleepy, but smiling—always so pleased by other people's happiness, just like her mother.

Frankly he's impressed how long this has lasted, though; he'd thought for sure this would be the year. She's probably defending the girl's innocence with her life.

"Has he indeed!"

"Yes, yes, you _must_ come see–"

"If you could just give me one moment, Miss Caroline," he starts, but Miss Sybil's leading her out before he can finish. She pulls the door _almost_ closed, but doesn't latch it.

When Thomas picks the phone back up Richard is smiling with his voice. "Quite a bit of noise, for this hour."

"We've had a very important visitor down the chimney," Thomas tells him. For all he knows they're listening at the door.

"Was worried it might be something requiring the fire brigade," Richard jokes, and Thomas laughs even though it isn't that funny, because that's the sort of love he's in. "I'll let you go, then, I suppose."

"You had better."

"More's the pity."

"Now you're just putting it off," he teases, as though he isn't doing the very same himself. "We'll talk about the other thing later, won't we?"

It's worth talking about, when they can stand to.

"Can do," Richard says, "if you're still willing."

"I may be."

The hinges on the door creak—Miss Caroline pokes her head in and is then, he imagines, pulled back into the passage by her cousin. Rather roughly, if the noise made is to be believed.

"–I should be going."

"Have a merry Christmas."

"I love you," Thomas says, unthinkingly.

"I love you, too."

And that's that.

He puts the telephone back on the hook and shakes off the feelings leftover from the conversation, all of them, good and bad. Once he's in the passage, Miss Caroline makes for the stairs in leaps and bounds.

"Who was that on the telephone?" she asks, turning round from three steps above. Once he's at her level she's bounding up them again.

"Oh, a friend of mine," replies Thomas smoothly—and that only because he waited to give her an answer, much to her annoyance.

He misses the days when he could still run up the stairs after them (let alone _carry them up on his back_ , for God's sake) without sounding like he's suffocating after.

"Isn't it very early?"

"Yes, but I get up very early, Miss Caroline."

As do everybody else that still lives in, though few they are in number. As they pass Mr Fordham tosses out a "happy Christmas"; the children repeat it with enthusiasm.

He opens the baize door and gestures _after them_.

"And why do you say 'I love you' when you hang up?"

"Caroline," scolds Miss Sybil.

"I'm only asking," the girl retorts, her nose in the air. If she isn't the spitting image of Lady Mary. "It's not the usual thing to say on the telephone."

"Quite right," Thomas tells her, his heart pounding for at least one reason. "But I wasn't speaking to a usual person—now, weren't you going to show me what Father Christmas left for you?"

**1939**

"He ships out on the seventh, so we have him for a proper Christmas."

But proper or not it was a black day even so, that's for sure. All over the house. The boy's putting a happy face on but that doesn't change the truth.

"Heaven knows his mother's owed that."

"I think it's more time off than they'd give them otherwise, but maybe that's just 'cause he's on his way to being an earl."

"Can't hurt." Richard's detached, more than anything else. He often is, now. After so many years Thomas can tell it even through the telephone, even through the penmanship in a letter. Through everything. He can tell it's there but he can't do a thing about it except keep his ears and heart open, and it's never been too much for him before but he's worried he'll not be able to say that for much longer.

"And I had a letter from Albert," adds Thomas, carefully. Carefully but he doesn't have anybody else to talk to about it, not anybody who will understand the way he does. "He's joined up with the Navy."

"Funny you say that," says Richard. "Saw off a footman for the Navy just today."

"Today?" Thomas repeats. "You can't be serious?"

He doesn't say anything.

"From the bloody Royal Household?"

"No, from the realm of the fairies."

"God, don't–"

"Name's Charles," he interrupts. "Aged twenty-four. He'd come along just before His Royal Highness abdicated, made it three years and a fortnight."

Charles.

Well, if he takes up praying again…

"Just got back about an hour ago, actually, was in London, his family's there."

"You were travelling?"

"Thomas, I'm travelling very frequently."

"I know that."

"No need to worry about me, love—how are the children?"

No matter what he says, though, Thomas is going to worry about him constantly. In fact the more he tells him not to worry the more he will do, and Richard ought to know that by now, but he supposes it may be comforting to tell him not to. Everybody's got their things like that.

And he doesn't mind the change of subject.

"Rambunctious little beasts," Thomas answers. "Noisy, untidy, ill-mannered and ill-bred, can't believe this is the future of England, how their parents put up with them before they hoisted them off on us I don't–"

"You sound thrilled."

"That's because I _am_ thrilled, thank you very much." Richard laughs. "Well, we've done our best to give them a lovely Christmas."

"Never a grander one for some of them, I wager."

"Good odds there, Mr Ellis, I'll grant you that." The house on its own made sure of that, but they put effort in all the same… it paid off, in his eyes. "Miss Branson's very good with them, in fact; she's been on about going into teaching when this is through."

However far off that may be.

He's under no illusions.

"Sounds like her mother, from all you've told me."

"She is, rather, yeah." He has to blink something back, saying it. "She's very much like her mother."

**1952**

"Twenty-five," Richard muses as he turns down the dial on the wireless. As soon as he's trying to settle again Thomas loops his arms through his and tugs him back into his lap where he belongs. "And the weight of the Commonwealth on her shoulders."

"I don't envy her."

"The responsibility or the age?"

"Both," Thomas replies. "Or, neither."

Richard kisses him on the ear; he laughs. He can't stop laughing, tonight, even after the gravity of what they've just heard—not that it was all too serious, but giggling wasn't exactly appropriate—but then he's had more than a bit to drink and he's got the right to laugh in his own home. Richard doesn't mind so there's no point in hiding it.

They've got a sparkling tree and a roaring fire and full bellies and a very comfortable sofa and, best of all, each other, in a place that's their own. Both of their own, and unlike years past, neither of them are plucking hours out of thin air and hopping on milk trains to make the day work. There's nowhere to set off for in the morning, no other place they're meant to be, no other people to serve. They were together the day before and they'll be together the day after.

How very nice it is, that.

It was a very long time in coming.

"Will you be expected at the coronation?"

"By a few people," answers Richard. "But not enough to tempt me, and they'd all understand, I believe, they won't hold it against me… unless you'd like to go up to London for a day."

Easy to see he'd _like_ to go, but it's nice of him to act like he wouldn't mind either way.

"Not particularly," Thomas says.

He's not one for crowds, himself, even if Richard thrives on them. Probably if he's going to attend a coronation again in his life the next one is his last chance, and he'll probably do better with a former royal servant than with the Crawleys in terms of actually seeing anything worth seeing, doing anything important. Meeting anybody who matters. Not being a servant anymore means he's got fewer chances to get in on things like this than he used to—and he could swear that in any years prior to this it would have been different, that there just happen to be more opportunities missed in this one than any previous—but he wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. It used to matter, being current, knowing the right people, experiencing exclusive things. It doesn't anymore. After more than sixty years on earth he's finally figured out what it is he likes, and that all the rest of it doesn't matter, that it was never making him as happy as he wanted.

If somebody had told him about any of this when _he_ was twenty-five he'd have had trouble believing them.

"Well, we ought to go up together at some point."

"Hankering for the old days?"

"Not particularly," he echoes.

Inconveniently, Thomas laughs at the same time as he tries to swallow a mouthful of mulled wine. Richard laughs at him first and hands him a napkin second. Good forethought on the part of whichever one of them decided they ought to have some of those with them.

"...but it'd be nice to make the journey together one of these days, wouldn't it? Instead of one of us or the other?"

"Yes, it would be."

But he hasn't really wanted to go any place else but their home since March.

Not if they don't have to. The years and years of meeting up all over England and snatching up every moment they can are done. Now they get to settle.

Thomas reaches for his glass of wine but is foiled by Richard intercepting his hand on its way there. "That's enough of that for tonight, love."

"Says who?"

"Says me," he teases, and he clutches Thomas's hand tight and presses his lips to his jaw, and relenting isn't the least bit difficult. "A merry Christmas for you indeed."

Another kiss, to his neck, next. Getting older has made some things different but the pieces underneath never really changed.

Thomas closes his eyes and holds Richard tight. "Merry Christmas to you, too."

"I said for you, not to you."

"But it's all the same, isn't it?"

Predictably, Richard answers that question with a kiss.

This time it's one he can return.

**Author's Note:**

>   * in 1928 the Royal Family didn't go to Sandringham for Christmas because King George V had septicaemia. Can't travel when you have septicaemia
>   * by 1929 London wasn't the largest city anymore (changed to _I believe_ New York in 1925) but Thomas doesn't have to know that
>   * in 1939 the Royal Family _did_ go to Sandringham for Christmas, but they did not for subsequent years of the war
> 

> 
> find me [on tumblr as @combeferre](https://combeferre.tumblr.com)


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